Water Softeners

INTERSTATE WATER SYSTEMS

4475 E. 32ND STREET

YUMA, ARIZONA 85365

866-622-2755

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Water Softening Basics

Hard water contains calcium or magnesium or both. The solution to hard water is to use a water softener. Filtration would be extremely expensive to use for all the water in the house, so a water softener is usually a less costly solution.

The idea behind a water softener is simple. The calcium and magnesium ions in the water are replaced with sodium chloride or potassium chloride ions. Since sodium chloride and potassium chloride do not precipitate out in pipes or react badly with soap, both of the problems of hard water are eliminated. To do the ion replacement, the water in the house runs through a bed of small resin beads. The beads are covered with sodium chloride or potassium chloride ions. As the water flows past the ions, they swap places with the calcium and magnesium ions. Eventually, the beads contain nothing but calcium and magnesium and no sodium chloride or potassium chloride, and at this point they stop softening the water. It is then time to regenerate the beads.

Regeneration involves soaking the beads in a stream of sodium chloride or potassium chloride ions. The water softener mixes up a very strong brine solution and flushes it through the beads (this is why you load up a water softener with salt or potassium chloride). The strong brine displaces all of the calcium and magnesium that has built up in the beads and replaces it again with sodium chloride or potassium chloride. The remaining brine plus all of the calcium and magnesium is flushed out through a drain pipe.

To determine your softening capacity needs, multiply your gallons per day (gpd) of water usage by the grains per gallon (gpg) of hardness. This will give you your daily softening needs. Divide the water softener's capacity by your needs and you will see how often you need to regenerate. Here is an example below:

	Estimate the number of gallons you and your family use in a given day. (Industry estimates are from 50-75 gallons per day per person). We will use a family of four using 50 gallons per day.
	Determine the hardness of the water in your area in grains per gallon (gpg). If you have the hardness in parts per million (ppm), divide that number by 17.1 to determine grains per gallon. For example 342 ppm would be approximately 20 gpg (342 ÷ 17.1 = 20)
	We will use 32,000 grain capacity as an example. 4 people/50 gallons a day = 200 gallons per day (gpd) 20 gpg water x 200 gpd = 4000 32,000 ÷ 4000 = 8 days before regeneration is needed. (Each regeneration will use between 8 and 12 pounds of salt on the average)
	If your water use is at this level or less, you might consider this size unit. If your water use is more you may want to consider a larger unit.

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This site was last updated 06/17/08